WATCH: Congressman Keith Ellison Talks Union Racism

As Keith Ellison makes his bid for the role of DNC chair official, statements revealed in a video recorded at the 2014 by video journalist Jeremy Segal aka Rebel Pundit acknowledge racist behavior perpetrated over decades by labor unions allies.

Ellison, a progressive and the first Muslim elected to Congress, formally announced his candidacy Monday to be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

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WATCH:

Ellison states in the video that we have to “take both” justice and racism:

In 1957, America was racist, as Jim Crow and women did not have no rights, gays were in the closet. But one person could feed a family of four. One third of all workers were in a union and other workers were paid as if they were. Many of us here at the Congressional Black Caucus, we celebrate the March on Washington.

Well, the U.A.W. wrote the check when Martin Luther King lost his life, it was AFSCME who was supporting the strike in Memphis, Tennessee. Now I’ll hear people say that the union movement has had a history of racism. It also had a history of fighting for justice, too. We gotta take both, right?

Ellison’s bid for DNC chair has the support of progressive leaders from filmmaker Michael Moore, who called Ellison “the exact way to go,” as well as New York Senator Sen. Chuck Schumer, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Ellison would be replacing acting DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile, who was revealed by emails published by Wikileaks to have fed questions to Hillary Clinton’s team ahead of debates during the 2016 election campaign. Brazile has remained as DNC head even after those revelations.